Snow Melt

Creative Saturday: Tracks in the Snow

Tacks in the Snow

I look behind me at tracks in the snow. They follow me as I climb toward the high pass. They are, of course, my tracks. At least, they are supposed to be my tracks but I wonder if they are really my tracks. They could belong to someone else; they could belong to a stranger who looks just like me. Perhaps I am not myself, it has been so long since I looked in a mirror. I could now be someone else, I could now be a werewolf or an elf or a werewolf elf. I could no longer be human.

I look back at the tracks in the snow. They follow me as I climb Dragon's Peak, as I struggle toward Fire Pass, the high pass that separates the Valley of Crystal Shadows from the Valley of the Were-Dragons. I wonder if the tracks are mine or if they belong to my shadow twin, the stranger that follows me on my quest to discover reality. The quest to discover my destiny.

I look back at the tracks in the snow. I do not think they belong to me, but I turn and put my feet into them. The tracks are the same size as my leather boots. The tracks must belong to me. Logic tells me the tracks belong to me, my intuition or is it my imagination tells me something different. It tells me they belong to someone else. It tells me they belong to a stranger. It tells me they belong to the person I was twenty footsteps ago.

I look back at the tracks in the snow. I know I cannot stand here watching the tracks that lead across the snow to me. I have to turn and continue my climb toward the crest. I cannot stand here all night because I will freeze and then what will happen to all those depending on me to continue the quest for ... for what my destiny. That seems so selfish, there has to be more to this quest then just me. There has to be more to this quest then the endless climb toward eternity.

I look back at the tracks in the snow. Then I turn back toward the crest and continue my climb. I try to ignore the tracks whose numbers increase as I push toward the crest of the pass that lies between Dragon's Peak and Werewolf's Peak. I must make the pass by night fall or I will freeze like the others who have come this way. If I become distracted by the thoughts of the stranger that hides withing my wondering thoughts, I will never make the pass. I must ignore the tracks in the snow that keep following me.